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 Bulb Onions Onions, one of the oldest vegetables, are found in a large number of recipes and preparations spreading almost the totality of the world’s cultures. They are part of the “Allium” Family, consisting of garlic, chives, leeks, shallots, and onions. They are available fresh, frozen, canned, caramelized, pickled, powdered, chopped, and dehydrated. Onions are bulbous plants having hollow leaves, that are cultivated worldwide for their rounded, highly aromatic, flavorful, edible bulbs.
 Onion Sets There are many types of onions you can grow, but the most common is the “bulb” onion, sometimes called a storage onion. Grown from seeds, sets, or plants, bulb onions can range from sweet and mild (Vidalia, Walla Walla, Sweet Spanish), to pungent (Stuttgarter, Yellow Globe, Copra).  Onion Plants "ready to plant" If you plan to grow your onions by seed Download the chart so you can customize it! CLICK HERE The following charts indicatestarting times and planting times for the vegetables we want to grow this year. The blue columns and light blue columns show the weeks for the average last hard frost (28° F) in April, average last frost (32° F) in May, average first frost (32° F) in October and average first hard frost (28° F) at the end of October. The # OF DAYS row tracks how many days there are before and after the average date of last frost (32° F) to give an idea of the starting period and outdoor growing period for tender vegetables. When a vegetable is listed with a planting time but no starting time it indicates that we intend to sow the seeds directly outdoors; these are all plants that do not transplant well. Peas and beans do not transplant well, but they also grow so fast in the early season that it really doesn’t matter. Some vegetables that are planted twice throughout the season for an early and late harvest.  Click to enlarge the February-April chart.
 Click to enlarge the May-July chart.
 Click to enlarge the August-October chart. - Written by Asa and Troy Click Here For My 1st Update Click Here For My 2nd Update It is February here in Pennsylvania – time to put up my indoor lighting system and start sowing all my extraordinary seed varieties. I start most of my Spring/Summer plants indoors 1 to 2 months before they will be planted in my garden. My house is not huge, so my access to sunlight is limited due to fewer south/west facing windows. Last year, I simply bought cheap, $9.95 indoor grow lights and hung them on a rack! I paid dearly for this in the form of spindly, weak, slow growing plants that either died, became diseased, or just simply performed poorly! My seeds would germinate, but would then just not grow properly. I knew I had excellent, sterile soil, air movement, the right temperature, and the perfect amount of water. So why wouldn’t they grow? The answer was I had insufficient LIGHTING. I cannot stress enough the importance of a proper relationship between your plants and their light source! So this year, I am experimenting with a new lighting system that I put together right in my own kitchen! You might know from my introduction that I like to make everything myself, not only to save money, but to ensure a quality product in the end. The research was a little challenging, but it turns out it was actually pretty simple to put this together. |
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in Pennsylvania, you will need to start them indoors by late January in order for them to reach a decent size for outdoor planting. Or, you can buy onion sets, and onion plants either online, or at your local nursery, to plant straight in your garden. Onions do great in the cold so you can plant them outside as early as March here, depending on the weather that year. As soon as you can work the ground, go for it.